Review of Recent Crane Accidents

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Review of Recent Crane Accidents

1998 Incidents (As of August 1998)
1997 Incidents
1996 Incidents
1995 Incidents

1998 Incidents
There have been two very serious accidents involving cranes on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) so far in 1998*. The first serious accident occurred on May 10 when a platform crane failed while offloading a rental crane and killed two workers. Ocean Energy is the operator of the platform. Although this accident is still under investigation, the early indication is that the crane was poorly maintained and that mechanical failure contributed to the accident.

The second serious accident occurred on June 2 and it too involved the offloading of a rental crane. This event differed from the first accident in that the operation of a crane did not factor into the accident. The apparent cause of this accident was the improper disassembly of the rental crane (human error - lack of proper training, preparation, and supervision). One worker was killed and three others were seriously injured. Amoco is the operator of the platform and Sundowner is the contractor that was offloading the crane.

There have been at least six other minor incidents that involved crane operations in 1998. Three incidents caused significant damage to crane booms when equipment failed or the operator made an error. Two other incidents appear to have been caused by improper or poor techniques by "riggers" on supply boats. (For this report, riggers are personnel that attach or unhook loads or otherwise assist with crane operations. In many cases a rigger is a roustabout, roughneck, or a deckhand on a work or supply boat. In giving these personnel this job "title," we are not implying that they have any specialized skills or training to perform this job.) One of these incidents resulted in a minor injury and the other caused the spillage of 400 gallons of motor oil. The last incident caused no damage or injuries when a fast line parted.

Another incident should be included with these 1998 cranes incidents because it involves the hoisting of materials. This accident involved a hoist used to move a blowout preventer (BOP) stack and resulted in the year’s first fatality (February 6). A roughneck was pinned between the BOP stack and a structural beam after one of the hoist’s wire ropes failed. Apparently the wire rope had corroded, possibly leading to its failure.

*On October 27, 1998, another serious crane accident occurred. The crane operator was killed when the crane broke from it’s pedestal while lifting a load. This accident is not included in the report.

1997 Incidents
There were at least 10 crane incidents in 1997 according to Accident/Incident forms and Accident Investigation Reports (referred to as reports for the rest of this paper) contained in our Technical Information Management System (TIMS). Incidents ranged from minor personnel injuries and minor property damage to two accidents resulting in two fatalities.

Crane pedestals failed on two occasions causing major damage to the cranes and one serious injury. Mechanical failure caused these two incidents.

Two other incidents damaged crane booms as a result of improper lifting techniques. One boom failed due to overloading because the wrong boom angle was used to offload a rig. In the other, the boom damage occurred when the boom pawl brake failed and the boom pivoted to the surface of the Gulf. Both of these incidents may have been caused by crane operator error. Fortunately there were no injuries in these two incidents.

Slings were involved in three incidents. Twice slings failed during the lifting operation, one failure resulted in a fatality. In that fatality, the floorhand handling the tag line was underneath the load when the sling failed. A second fatality occurred when a sling snagged and broke off the valve on an accumulator bottle and the escaping pressure blew the rigger across the rig floor. According to the report, the probable cause of this accident was that the communication between the crane operator and the rigger was not appropriate.

The other three incidents involved minor injury to a rigger, minor injury to a person exiting a personnel basket, and minor damage to an offloaded box of cuttings. These incidents are likely due to human error.

1996 Incidents
There were at least ten crane incidents in 1996. Severity of the incidents ranged from minor injuries and property damage to broken legs. There were no fatalities associated with crane operations in 1996. Improper lifting and mishandling loads (including personnel baskets) accounted for five of the accidents. One personnel basket got snagged and dumped a worker out of the basket. Two other personnel basket incidents resulted in workers breaking their legs, one was exiting the basket during rough seas and the other when the crane line slipped.

Mechanical failures resulted in two incidents. In one incident, a rigger was struck by a falling cable after the anti-two blocking device failed. Apparently this device may have been damaged during previous heavy lifts but was not repaired. The other mechanical failure involved the failure of the crane turntable.

Three incidents involved human error. One involved a helicopter that clipped a crane boom. The crane operator erred when he left the boom in wrong position after completing the crane operations (helicopter pilot also erred by not properly judging landing clearances). Another occurred when a new operator dropped a mud logging lab on a work boat. The last incident involved the lack of communication between a crane operator and personnel on a work boat. This incident damaged a diesel transporter tank and resulted in a minor oil spill.

1995 Incidents
We found only five crane incidents for 1995. One incident resulted in the fatality of a worker as he was lowered by a crane to detach the mooring lines of a work boat. The worker fell into the Gulf and drowned when the cable which the worker was attached to slipped off the crane hook. Apparently the crane hook was not equipped with a proper safety latch to prevent the cable from slipping off the hook. Another sling slipped off the hook when a load shifted, fortunately this resulted in only minor damage.

On two separate incidents riggers were injured when their fingers were caught between loads99 being moved by cranes. The last incident resulted in 12 barrel diesel spill when a tank was ruptured while offloading a snubbing unit during bad weather.

Attachment 1 summarizes all of the above mentioned incidents. There may have been other crane incidents during these years, but we did not find them in the TIMS database. In addition, we reviewed some other incident reports where it was not readily apparent that a crane was actually involved. For example, a drum of diesel fuel was dropped in the Gulf, but the form did not state what activity caused the drum to fall into the Gulf. This incident may have occurred while a crane was loading or offloading of the drum or it could have happened while it was being moved with a hand truck.

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Last Updated: 02/01/2006, 12:28 PM